A WARRIOR'S CREED

I have no home...I make awareness my home.

I have no body...I make endurance my body.

I have no means...I make commitment my means.

I have no magic secrets...I make character my magic secrets.

I have no designs...I make "seizing opportunity" my design.

I have no enemy...I make apathy my enemy.

I have no armor...I make "trust my heart" my armor.

I have no castle...I make integrity my castle.

I have no strategy...I make love my strategy.

I have no tactics..I make spontaneity my tactics.

I have no miracles...I make everything my miracle.

PURSUING HAPPINESS

                                        THE UNENDING PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

  I think it’s unfortunate that we here in the good ol U.S of A. have a holiday designated to remind us once a year to be grateful for all we have and are provided with. I think of the prior Native American cultures and their practice of thanking plants, animals, water, wind, etc. for nurturing and sustaining their lives and those of their families; every day of the year was Thanksgiving.  Their simple acknowledgement of the interconnections between themselves and Earth’s abundant resources providing for them resulted in the ritual expression of gratitude and prayer.

I think the practice of gratitude has far reaching effects on the lives of those who entertain it. I personally was raised with the “glass half empty” perspective and have spent a large part of my adult life letting go of the scarcity point of view and trading it for a “half full” point of view. The one results in a genuine and sustainable happiness, the other in discontent and restlessness. It initially surprised me to learn that gratitude precedes joy and not the other way around.

The pursuit of happiness promised us in the Constitution seems to have become a self fulfilling prophecy. Our culture is indeed addicted to a sense of scarcity and results in an  addiction to consuming more and more. The adage “looking for love in all the wrong places” can be substituted with our futile search for “happiness” in all the wrong places.   We are in fact, addicted and driven by marketing and societal brainwashing to continuously pursue happiness and briefly if ever, obtain it. Usually our happiness is superficial because it comes from a sort of temporary glow over our brand new, upgraded cell phone, laptop, car, shoes, etc. you fill in the blank. These purchases and accumulations don’t really get to the heart of our hearts resulting in the deeper joy and satisfaction we long for.

I have trouble with Christmas itself. The Scrooge is the icon for stingy self- centeredness. The Grinch another American “humbug” character. I wouldn’t be surprised if the origin of the Grinch was dreamt up by some marketing executive in a moment of inspiration. Let’s guilt the public into buying gifts for others in the name of generosity of spirit, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. If you really contemplate it, do you think Christ would be promoting a once a year, buying and giving spree  rather then a continuous generosity born of genuine affection rooted in a daily spirit of love and appreciation?

Are we so consumed by the modern frenzy and speed of life on an average day? Alvin  Toffler wrote “Future Shock” way back in the early sixties. Have we stopped to notice the effects on our own health and well being of others from our over stimulated, compulsive “doing” and manically over-achieving society?  The symptoms of depression and anxiety are seen in our ever growing dependence on pharmaceuticals to mask and manage these symptoms. 

How would life here be different for us all if we began to be satisfied with owning the same car for 8 or ten years? Buying a house just large enough for the size and needs of our families instead of some extravagant castle?  Working only 40 hours a week and leaving ourselves time and energy to spend with our families in activities that nurture our bodies and souls?

Is it time to wake up neighbors? Wake up perhaps and see that the solution to the dilemmas we face economically, environmentally, physically, psychologically and spiritually are driven by our unbalanced manic racing towards “more, better, faster”.  When is enough enough? How is your peace and serenity doing?

Another obvious and fatal result of our frenzied lifestyle in our alleged ”developed nations” is our life threatening addictions like drinking, smoking, lusting and over eating to name just a few. On the other end of our dis-ease we are greeted by debilitating and/or fatal afflictions such as heart attacks, cancer and the myriad forms of illness that all to some degree or another suffer from. 

We are the only animals on this planet that do harm to ourselves, that knowingly practice unhealthy behaviors. How bad do things have to get for us all before we are willing to collectively stop, and take a united and realistic assessment of how our behaviors, beliefs and habitual ways of thinking are driving us toward extinction?  Call me an alarmist or a curmudgeon like Scrooge and keep your head buried in the sand  but if we don’t awaken to our unmindful self defeating actions now, we will continue to pay the price until perhaps we are no longer around to pay at all.

re-edited Nov. 2016.

The American Dream

Somewhere in this patriotic and compulsive pursuit of happiness and other somewhat ambiguous qualities and ideals we Americans seem to have lost the ability to perceive and appreciate simple reality. The American Dream which we have projected upon the entire globe (read; our dream must also be your dream), is just that-a dream, and dreams are not real, nor are they achievable, nor even necessarily desirable.

How appropriate that our politics and politicians have less to do with vision, ethics and leadership than with image management and marketing. How perfect that we now vote for Hollywood actors to be our leaders, governors and presidents; Hollywood, the factory from which all fantasies and dreams are issued.

What does it say about who we have become; that the only qualifications we require from our leaders is that they can look a camera square in the eye and spout rhetoric written by dramatists intended to create a sense of security by mezmorinizing us with a few deft impassioned clichés-commercial hooks, really?

We are already hypnotized, we are asleep on our feet and in the voting booths. We wouldn’t be able to identify the truth when we did hear it because it is impossible to wade through all the fiction that bombards us in the guise of journalism each day. So we end up looking at somebody’s smiling face and deciding from our gut if we believe in this or that guy or gal.

The dream making machinery has come so far; there used to be a warning, “Don’t believe everything you read in print”. Now we have electronic print and words spoken or read still hold sway with enormous power.

Meanwhile…now that so many of us have bought and own the American Dream; now that we have 2.5 children and a 3 car garage and a 4 bedroom home in a clean and safe development with decent schools, why are we still aching for what we thought the dream would fulfill? Why are we not serene and secure? Why are we not satisfied and fulfilled?

What do we really value after all? Ask people what they want and they usually answer, “stuff”. Along with all the stuff we work so hard to obtain comes pills and therapies and divorces to maintain our functioning so we can keep working to get more stuff. Maybe I got the wrong stuff! Now Ill go buy the “right stuff” and this will make me happy and content.

I am addicted to the dream along with most others. I am addicted to what is not real. I am addicted to a promise of happiness, excitement, sexual fulfillment, security, health, family accord. If I just but the right “stuff”. If I drink the right beer I will get laid a lot and with the right car I will feel excited and virile and if I buy some new hair and take Viagra I can have a sustainable romance with my darling wife who just rebuilt her boobs and ass.

There is no room in the American Dream for reality; for who we really are under the clothes and fake body parts and pretigious jobs and cars-the true frightened souls who just don’t feel serene with themselves.

We age and grow old and weak and sickly. We also grow wiser sometimes but America doesn’t value elder wisdom. As our bodies deteriorate we come closer to spirit but America has no need for spirituality. The only prophets valued here are econmic profits. The irony is printed on our coins, “In God we trust”. If the truth were printed on coins it would say, “In this coin, we trust”.

"WHO"?

"WHO"?

who is it that beats this drum?

if you think it is you then

leave this circle,

you are not ready for truth,

who is it that fills these lungs?

if you think it’s you

you do not sit in this circle,

but trapped within yourself,

that beating drum 

within your chest,

that flute played with your breath…

gifts, all gifts..

the drum, the flute, this breath

now this breath too, 

gifts, all gifts,

 each present moment.

who is it that gives you these gifts? 

if you do not know, 

find out!

REMEMBER?

this grand event of sitting still, serene,

grinning lazily while channeling the warmth,

light and joy of simply being alive?

that incredibly gentle loving breeze

that tickles the skin,

the hairs on your arm fluff and flutter

while glee creeps wickedly up your spine..

so delicious!

We look for these things,

these reasons and ways to reconnect

with the wonder that keeps us rising at dawn,

heaving ourselves heavily out of merciful slumber,

resurrecting ourselves and rejoining the mundane routines

of our uncertain beings,

what happens outside of us

and to us

is not of any import at all.

It is all in how we connect

with what is,

it is all in how we see and feel what surrounds us.

What is it that you and I need

that keeps us rising and wandering and wondering?

We seekers of love

lost outside our own throbbing boiling cores,

continue to search and reach outward

for that which is central within us.

We seekers of peace

cry out at the world of grief

that reminds us time and again

that we cannot embrace one another

until we learn to embrace ourselves

completely and finally..

Can I find the promised land

within me?

The uncontested sacred space,

so tranquil and protected

that nothing outside me,

nothing outside us,

can penetrate the boundaries

of the one true sanctuary?